“That’s why I’m here!” Tiff said as Estelle kicked Ig in the ankle. “Who wants to start? Finley, how about you?”
Finley looked like he’d rather start running. “Why are you asking me?”
“Because I know you’ve seen something.” Tiff opened her notebook. “Whenever I talk about ghosts, you go all shifty and change the subject.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Finley said. “By the way, have you seen Rufus anywhere?”
“See! You’re doing it right now!” Tiff poked him with her pen. “Come on, spill the beans.”
Finley backed away. “I’m sorry, but I really can’t help you.”
Tiff gave him a narrow-eyed look before turning to the back page of her notebook. “Okay. In that case, I’ll put you down on myspeciallist. Shan said I should make a note of any campers who didn’t want to talk to me.”
“Not to be rude, but we’re kind of in the middle of something here,” Estelle said, not-so-subtly shooing Tiff out again. “Why don’t you go question some of the older campers? We’ll see you later.”
Finley sighed, watching Tiff trot off. “I still don’t like excluding her and Spencer. It’s not right, keeping secrets from our pack mates.”
“Wecan’ttell them what we’re doing,” Beth said firmly. “Tiff and Spencer are new to camp. They don’t care about Leonie the way we do.”
“You mean, like obsessive stalkers?” Ignatius muttered.
Beth glared at him. “Imean, we can’t trust them to keep our secret. If we let them in on the plan, we’ll have to tell them that we lied about seeing a ghost.”
“We can’t risk them blabbing to the grown-ups,” Estelle agreed. “And anyway, we’re not excluding Spencer. It’s not like hewantsto hang out with us.”
Ignatius snorted. “Of course he does.”
“What do you mean?” Archie asked. “He barely talks to anyone. I’ve asked him to play shift tag with us loads of times, but he always says he’d rather read his book. He obviously doesn’t even want to be at camp.”
“No, he’s just so scared of his own animal, he thinks it’s safer to push everyone else away.” Ignatius surveyed the ring of blank faces. “Oh, for the love of gold. Am I the only person who’s bothered to exchange more than two sentences with the poor saps who’ve been stuck with us this summer? I’m supposed to be the arrogant, unlikeable one.”
“We’re supposed to be talking about Shan, not Spencer,” Estelle said. “What are we going to do about him?”
“We can’t keep trying to get his sunglasses,” Beth said. “Not now Leonie’s caught on. We’ll get in trouble.”
“Perhaps Leonie will figure out the truth without our help?” Finley said hopefully. “I mean, he’s always finding things to do for her. Surely she has to catch on sooner or later.”
“It might be a lot later,” Archie pointed out. “Grown-ups can bereallystupid.”
“Yeah, we’re gonna have to make sure he stays at camp.” Estelle tapped a finger against her chin thoughtfully. “So, Shan has Tiff collecting ghost stories, huh?”
“Oh, no.” Ignatius buried his face in his hands. “Please,pleasetell me you aren’t planning to put a sheet on your head and hang around other campers’ cabins goingwooooo.”
Estelle grinned like a shark. “Not exactly.”
CHAPTER 14
Leonie had been worried that they’d soon run out of leads. Even with Tiff’s assistance, she hadn’t expected to uncover more than a handful of second-hand stories to investigate.
A week later, they had exactly the opposite problem.
“The Soul-Sucking Ghost of Thunder Mountain Strikes Again,” Honey read aloud from the latest edition of the camp newspaper. For privacy, the senior staff had gathered in the camp office after dark—though with both Ragvald and Shan, it made for a tight squeeze. “Further scenes of horror this week, as five more campers report encountering the ghastly apparition stalking the camp...”She looked up, eyebrows raising. “At this rate, the newspaper is going to need to add another page.”
“If only for the illustrations,” Conleth murmured, flicking through his own copy.
Leonie sighed. “At least no one seems to be taking this seriously.”
Moira nodded in agreement, the beads at the ends of her long box braids clicking together. “From the gossip I’veoverheard, most of the campers think it’s the junior counselors playing an elaborate prank.”
